Organizing Upgrade stands poised for a new transformation. A group of organizers founded the site as a place to reflect on pressing questions following the 2008 crisis of racial capitalism. A new group revived it in 2017, responding both to the election of Donald Trump and the movement upsurge that began with Occupy Wall Street and continued with the Dreamers and Black Lives Matter, NoDAPL and Me Too and Bernie 2016.
Now we’re almost ready to unveil a long-overdue overhaul of our website. We’re excited about having a more attractive and user-friendly way to deliver content—and hope that the new features will help bring the unity and clarity our movements need going into these next critical years, as we fight the right and build multi-racial democracy. While we put finishing touches on the new site, we’re bringing you some highlights of the last 13 years.
The panels in the 2020 video series “This Is Not a Drill Live” gave us food for thought and ideas for strategy as the crises and contradictions multiplied and deepened. You can find the whole series here. This, the most-watched episode, looked at what it meant for left organizers to build independent political power after Bernie and in the middle of health, political, and economic crises. Hosts Adam Gold and Rishi Awatramani were joined by Maria Svart, Democratic Socialists of America; Ava Benezra, Justice Democrats; Jonathan Smucker, Pennsylvania Stands Up; Andrea Mercado, The New Florida Majority/ now Florida Rising (organizations for identification purposes only). Co-hosted by The Real News Network.
Guests
Adam has 20 years of organization-building experience in the San Francisco Bay Area. He brings expertise in community organizing, developing organizational infrastructure, and civic engagement. Adam was initially trained in community organizing in Oakland and later became involved in the youth movement, co-founding C-Beyond in Concord, and later forming the Youth Empowerment Center, an umbrella organization for youth movement organizations. Adam was hired as Campaign Manager for the Just Cause Evictions campaign in Oakland in 2002, the organization’s first staff position, and continued working with Just Cause (now Causa Justa :: Just Cause) for 13 years. In his time at CJJC, he helped to build up the organizing campaigns, electoral work and infrastructure, and also helped facilitate two mergers with allied organizations.